On Sat, 2002-09-07 at 13:08, Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:
A simple question to those who demand Helga should be banned...how? What do we ban? Her username? She posts without one. Her IP address? It changes the next time her internet connection drops, almost certainly. Her entire domain? This catches a bunch of innocent potential Wikipedia contributors, and she can merely relay a connection through a proxy, by which time she's really annoyed with the continual attempts to ban (my guess is that "ban" in the minds of some bannees would become "censor") her and ever more determined to post her opinions. This issue needs to be thought out more...
I think you're coming at this from the wrong angle. If we ban her, we ban her, and that means both the IP and probalby immediate retraction of stuff she posts from other IPs, if it's obviously her work.
I'm sure Helga will understand the message and console herself with Wikipedia continuing to be (in her opinion) a hopelessly biased project that does not deserve her attention.
The problem is not figuring out how to effectively ban someone - that just can't be done. The problem is finguring ot how let someone know they're not wanted on Wikipedia anymore without turning them into enemies. The problem is also that this might very well not be possible - which might in turn settle the entire debate as to whether kooks or "good contributers" are wanted. We might have no choice.
That's actually more or less what I meant :). Since a ban can't actually really be a ban, it's more a measure of censure. Which means it should be compared to other measures of censure open to us in terms of effectiveness and likely negative consequences. It just seemed lots of people were posting things like "Helga has to go", which implies that they really think this is a state of affairs that's possible...